Compartments in current medication dispensers are associated with a discrete time of the day that one or more medications in the compartments are taken. For example, if a person is taking a medication twice per day, two compartments are used, one for each time the medication is intended to be taken. In current rotary medication dispensers, compartments are presented one at a time in a sequential order. If there are 14 compartments, for example, and if the aperture is exposing compartment 7, then at the next medication dispensing time, the aperture would expose the adjacent compartment 8 and so on. In order to avoid taking the wrong medication, this dispenser must be filled with an understanding of the operation of the dispenser such that desired medications are dispensed at the correct time.
Current medication dispensers are accordingly loaded differently depending on when the medication is loaded. For example, if a dispenser is loaded after the first time medications are taken during the day, then the dispenser must be loaded with the knowledge that these medications have been taken. If a user of the dispenser is unaware of what medications have been taken, a point of failure is introduced in loading the desired medication.